Lexicon (4 page)

“Hmm,” he said. “Okay, tell you what. I’ll give you another shot.”

Benny had her cards. But she could get more, then she’d push this guy to a hundred, ask to see color, and the second the bills touched the table, she’d grab them and run. She’d go to Benny and tease him awhile.
Guy was good for about twenty, you said?
She loved the look he got when she brought him money.
Maybe fifty?
“Let me finish my coffee, we’ll go to the store across the street—”

“Not cards. A different kind of test.”

“Oh,” she said doubtfully. “Like what?”

“Like, don’t blow me.”

She was startled, but his expression hadn’t changed, so maybe she heard this wrong, or it was an expression, somehow. Maybe he meant:
Don’t blow me off.
There were plenty of people nearby, so no immediate problem. But she’d need to find a way to leave alone.

“My job is not actually to administer questionnaires. My job is to test people. Think of it as a job interview that you don’t know you’re having.”

She swallowed the last of the hash browns. “Well, thanks for thinking of me, but you know, I’m pretty happy with what I’ve got going on now. Thanks, though.” She gulped coffee dregs. “Thanks for the breakfast.” She reached for her bag.

“It pays.”

She hesitated. “How much?”

“How much do you want?”

“I make five hundred a day now,” she said, which was an outrageous lie, of course. She made between zero and two hundred dollars a day, and split that with Benny.

“This would be more.”

“How much more?” She caught herself. What was she thinking? He was wearing a
plastic watch
. He would take her to some dingy apartment and lock the door. There was no job. “Look, you know what, I’m just gonna pass.”

He reached into a pocket and opened his wallet. She’d noted yesterday that he had no more than twenty dollars in there. He unzipped a section and tossed notes onto the table. She stared. There were a lot of them.

“We wear cheap clothing because it would seem odd if we stood around on street corners in ten thousand dollar suits.”

“I see,” she said, not really listening.

“Let go of your bag.”

She looked at him. Apparently it was obvious that she had been thinking of snatching that cash and running like hell. She released the bag.

“You get a first-class air ticket to our head office in DC. You spend one week there, doing a round of tests. If you pass, you become a trainee on a starting salary of sixty thousand dollars. Fail, and we fly you home again with five thousand in an envelope for your trouble. How does that sound?”

“Like a scam.”

He laughed. “I know. It does sound like a scam. I thought the same thing when they approached me.”

She kept looking at the cash on the table. She didn’t want to. It was irresistible.

“You went to school,” Lee said. “I mean, at some point. And it didn’t suit you very well. They wanted to teach you things you didn’t care about. Dates and math and trivia about dead presidents. They didn’t teach persuasion. Your ability to persuade is the single most important determinant of your quality of life, and they didn’t cover that at all. Well, we do. And we’re looking for students with natural aptitude.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m interested; I’ll take a ticket.”

He smiled. She remembered his comment about the blow job. She must have gotten that backward. He must want her to blow him in exchange for the air ticket. That way made sense. She wondered if there really was a job. He was kind of believable.

“Show me something,” she said. “Something official.”

He slid a business card across the table. His full name was Lee Bob Black. She tucked this into her bag, feeling better. This card enabled her to call Lee’s boss and explain what Lee had asked her to do in exchange for a job. She hoped it was a big company, the kind that hated publicity. She hoped there was really a job, because she would be awesome at it.

“Now you know who I am,” said Lee. “Who are you?”

“Emily.”

“Are you a cat person or a dog person?”

“What?”

“Cats or dogs? Which do you prefer?”

“What do you care?”

He shrugged. “I’m just making conversation.”

“I hate cats. Too sneaky.”

“Ha,” he said. “What’s your favorite color?”

“This is your idea of conversation?”

“Just answer the question.”

“I’m just saying, as someone who knows about banter, you’re really terrible at it,” she said. “Black.”

“Close your eyes and pick a number between one and a hundred.”

“Are these from your questionnaires?”

“Yes.”

“You’re surveying me? Is this the test?”

“Part of it.”

“I’m not closing my eyes. Thirty-three.”

“Do you love your family?”

She didn’t move. “Are you serious? You think I’d be here if I had a good family?” She almost got up. But she didn’t. “No.”

“Okay, then,” said Lee. “Last question. Why did you do it?”

She stared.

“Don’t manufacture an answer,” said Lee. “I’ll be able to tell, and it will invalidate the test.”

“This is a bullshit question, isn’t it?”

“How do you mean?”

“You don’t even know what you’re asking. You just want me to think you do.”

He shrugged.

“This doesn’t sound like a survey.”

“It’s a personality test.”

“Is this Scientology?”

“No.”

“Amway?”

“I promise it’s not Amway. It’s no one you’ve heard of. You’re very close, Emily. What’s your answer?”

“To your bullshit question?”

“You don’t have to believe it. You just have to answer honestly.”

“Fine,” she said. “I did it because I felt like it.”

Lee nodded. “One disappointing thing about this job. People always turn out to be less interesting than you hope.” Before Emily could decide whether he’d insulted her, he spoke a jumble of words. They slid by her and were gone. She felt dazed. “Go to the restroom,” he said. “Wait there for me.”

•   •   •

She walked to the counter. She was leaving her bag behind, but that was okay. Lee would look after it. She asked a boy behind the register for the bathroom key and he gave her a look but handed it over. There was a single stall. She closed the toilet lid and sat on it.

After a minute, the door opened and Lee came in, talking on a cell phone. Her heart thumped. He was kind of handsome. His face grew on you. She even liked his hair. She sort of loved him. “Yeah,” Lee told his phone. “But hey, we’re here, let’s give it one more pass.” He stopped in front of her. She watched him fumbling with his zipper. She was in an interesting place. She was present, but remote. Everything was curious and amusing. Lee jammed his cell phone against his shoulder, dug into his pants, and pulled out his penis. It was longer than she expected. It bobbed in front of her, curving upward before her eyes. “I’m actually with her now,” said Lee. “Thought there was something there, for a minute.” He covered the phone. “Put it in your mouth.”

She put her hand around his penis. She opened her mouth. She thought:
Wait, what?

“I know,” said Lee. “Every time.” He laughed. His penis jumped in her hand.

She punched his balls. Lee howled. She tried to kick him but he was doubling over, in full retreat, and she caught his knee or elbow or something. She ran for the door and pulled it open. Heads turned. “Pervert!” she yelled to the turning faces. “There’s a pervert in there!” She scooped up her bag. Not one person had moved. “Pervert!” she shouted, and ran.

•   •   •

In the alley, boys in baseball caps were dealing drugs or freestyling lyrics or whatever they did and one stepped toward her, his hands out. She blasted past him. Her bag bounced. It was three blocks before she felt safe enough to stop and check whether Lee was following. No. She dropped her bag for a second and put her hands on her knees to suck air. People flowed around her. What had just happened? She remembered the details but it didn’t make sense. She didn’t know what she had been thinking.

She looked up. Lee was shambling toward her, a hand clutched over his groin, his face contorted. She jerked upright. On the other side of the street, a girl with long brown hair and a cheap suit stepped onto the road, backed away from a car, then ran at her through traffic. The way she was angling, she wouldn’t cut Emily off so much as corral her, force her eastward, and this set off all kinds of alarm bells, because when someone did that, they had friends. She craned her neck and spotted two clipboard-carrying boys in suits heading straight at her. “Help!” she said, but to no one in particular, and of course there was no help. She spied an alley and ran for it. The bag slipped and she panicked and let it drop, which was unthinkably terrible because without her bag she had nothing; she would have to rely on people. She passed an office building, a beautiful business couple emerging from its glass revolving doors like an advertisement, and she thought about running in there, to whatever clean, safe, corporate-warmed world they had come from. But that would never work; that would end in her being tossed out the same door by a security guard in charge of protecting that world from people like her. She kept running. The alley turned and dipped and became a driveway.
Not good, not good.
It terminated at a locked roller door painted
KEEP CLEAR LOADING AREA
. She started back the way she had come, but they were already here. One of the boys held her Pikachu bag. She shoved a hand into her jeans pocket. “I’ve got Mace.” She backed up until she hit the roller door. All those office windows: Surely someone would be looking down. Maybe if she screamed. Maybe if there were angels.

“Take a moment,” said the girl. “Get your breath back.” Beside her, Lee bent and spat.

“Stay away from me.”

“Sorry about the chase. We just really, really didn’t want you to get away.”

“I will fuck you up,” said Emily.

“It’s okay.” The girl smiled quizzically. “It’s okay, Emily; you passed.”

MEMO

To: All Staff

From: Cameron Winters

Hi guys!! Just a quick one to say we ARE getting leave loading on the 29th so that’s double time for all casuals! Nice one head office!

I’m away for the long weekend so Melanie will be CRO. On her 18th birthday too (Saturday)!! Sorry Melanie it just slipped out!!!

Also please please!! be careful who you give the bathroom key to. We had a junkie and a poor guy walked in on her, she freaked out and scared the customers, obviously not a good look!!!

Peace,

xCx

[THREE]

The van’s tires slipped on the freeway merge and the interior filled with the light from an approaching eighteen-wheeler. “Fuck!” said the tall man. A horn bellowed. Wil felt a looseness, a surrender of the vehicle to natural forces, then the wheels bit and straightened them up between the lanes. The truck’s horn blew endlessly.

He wondered how much damage he would do to himself if he kicked open the door and flung himself out at this speed. Probably a lot. His hands were bound.

“Fuck,” said the man. He was silent a moment. “
Fuck.
”

Wil said nothing.

“What’s your name?”

“Wil Parke.”

“Not now! Before!”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“When you lived in Broken Hill, Australia. What was your name?”

“I’ve never lived in—”

“I can hear your accent!”

“I grew up in Australia. In Melbourne. But I’ve never been to Broken Hill.”

The man hauled the wheel. The van slid across three lanes and slewed to a stop in the emergency lane. He pulled on the hand brake, took the shotgun, and tried to drag Wil out of the van. Wil resisted and the man hit him twice with the shotgun butt and Wil tumbled out into snow. When he got to his feet, he was looking into a gun barrel.

“You’re thinking if you’re not who I want, I’ll let you go,” said the man. “When in fact, if you’re not the outlier, I’m going to shoot you and leave your body in the snow.”

“I’m the outlier.”

“Eighteen months ago, where did you live?”

“Broken Hill.”

“Where in Broken Hill?”

A car blew by. “Main Street.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said the tall man.

“Tell me what you want. I don’t know what you want.”

The man sank to his haunches. “You drive a Taurus. You’ve been in the States eight months. A year before that, you lived in Broken Hill. You had a dog.”

He shivered.

A truck passed, wheels spitting road ice. “Not the outlier,” said the man. He shook his head. “Well, fuck.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“Forget about it,” said the man, standing. “Get up. Turn around.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

He rose, cautiously.

“Turn.”

He turned.

“Walk.”

“Where?”

“It doesn’t matter. Away from the road.”

“Okay, let’s think about this.”

“You don’t walk, I’ll shoot you here.”

“I’m not walking into the woods so you can shoot me there!”

“Fine,” said the man, and there was a rustling, and Wil started walking. His shoes sank into the snow. It wasn’t more than ankle deep, but he made it look like it was. “Faster.”

“I’m trying.”

“I’m trying not to shoot you,” said the man. “But it’s getting fucking difficult.”

He forged through deepening snow. His mind was a great white expanse. A snowscape, devoid of plans that ended with him alive.

“Veer right. You’re trying to angle back to the road.”

He veered. There were trees ahead, a thin stick forest. He was going to be shot in the woods. His body would disappear beneath the snowfall. In the spring, he would be gnawed by foxes. He would be discovered by Boy Scouts and poked with sticks.

“Stop. This will do.”

“Don’t shoot me in the back!” He turned, fighting snow. The man was ten feet away, unreachable in drifts this deep. “Leave me here. I can’t make it to anywhere in a hurry. You can get away.”

The man raised the shotgun butt to his shoulder.

“At least have the . . . goddamn common courtesy . . . wait! Tell me why!
Tell me why!
You can’t
just shoot me
! In the bathroom, you said to hop and I didn’t! That meant something, didn’t it?”

“No.”

“Don’t shoot me in the face!”

The man exhaled. “Fine. Turn around.”

“Okay! Okay! Just let me . . .” He pulled one foot out of the snow, put it down again. His nose ran. “
Motherfucker!
”

“I’m shooting you in five seconds,” said the tall man. “You arrange yourself however you like between now and then.”

He sank to the ground, because it didn’t matter. “I’m sorry, Cecilia. I’m sorry you died. I never said I loved you and I should have. It’s just the word. The bare words I couldn’t say, and I should have.” He was going to pass out. The man would shoot his unconscious body in the snow. It was probably best.

Time passed. He raised his head. The tall man was still there. “What did you say?”

“The . . . I . . . never told Cecilia I loved her. I should have said the words.”

“You said
bare
words.”

The silence stretched. He couldn’t help himself. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

His bowels shivered.

The man lowered the shotgun. “She made you forget,” said the man. “You really don’t know who you are.”

Wil sat in the snow, teeth chattering.

“New plan,” said the man. “Get back in the van.”

•   •   •

The world slid by in exit ramps and yellow-lit gas stations and trees dressed in snow. The van’s wipers thumped. Wil’s eye throbbed. The driver’s window was half-cranked, letting in furious air.

The man glanced at him. “You feel okay? You look washed out.” He gestured. “Your face.”

Theoretically, the snow banked up alongside the freeway was a couple of feet deep. He could possibly survive a leap. Then: flailing through snow. Hearing the van brake behind him. The door pop open. Not so good.

The man waggled a dash control. “Heater doesn’t work. I need the window open to keep from fogging up.”

Practically, it was highly unlikely he could get the door open with his feet. Practically, he wasn’t going anywhere until the man decided to pull over.

“You actually look a little hypoglycemic,” said the man.

He could kick. He could try to force a crash. A problem here was the man was wearing a seat belt and Wil wasn’t. A crash was therefore likely to hurt Wil a lot more. It was a last-resort kind of plan.

“Stop it,” said the man. “You’re not going anywhere so stop fucking thinking about it.”

He looked out the side window.

“Next gas station, I’ll pull over,” said the man. “Get you some jelly beans.”

•   •   •

They turned in to a glowing gas station and stopped at the farthest pump from the store. “Okay,” said the man. “Before we proceed, some ground rules.” He snapped his fingers, because Wil was staring at the store. “No running. No screaming for help. No mouthing secret messages to the cashier, looking directly into security cameras, saying you need the bathroom then locking yourself in, et cetera, et cetera. Doing any of those things will cause me”—he rapped the shotgun, the nose of which poked out from the footwell—“to use this. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“Not on you. You, I need. I count three people in there. Do you want me to shoot three people?”

“No.”

“Neither do I. So don’t make me shoot three people.” He twirled a finger. “Turn around.”

“What?”

“So I can cut the cord.”

His bindings loosened; he brought forward his arms against the protest of his muscles and rubbed his wrists. He felt a lot more optimistic with his hands free.

“Any questions?” said the man.

“Who are you?”

“Tom.”

“What?”

“I’m Tom,” said the man. “You asked who I am. I’m Tom.”

Wil said nothing.

“So let’s get these snacks,” Tom said, and opened the door.

•   •   •

Three other cars sat beside pumps: two sedans and a battered truck with Texas plates, its rear window draped with a Confederate flag. A bumper sticker read:
CAN’T FIND A JOB? THANK AN ILLEGAL
. Wil had thought Tom would want to fill up, but he headed for the store. The glass doors parted and they stepped inside. There was music. The air smelled sweet. Tom stamped his feet. “Woo,” he said, to nobody. “Cold tonight.”

Wil saw magazines and chocolate bars. A poster offered a hot dog and a slushie for just two dollars. How could he be kidnapped next to a deal like that? It felt wrong. He shouldn’t fear for his life in a convenience store while looking at hot dogs. But he looked at Tom, and Tom was still there, with a shotgun not quite concealed beneath his coat, and Wil felt nauseated and looked at the hot dogs again. That guy had almost shot him. He had been seconds away from spreading Wil across the snow. Cecilia was dead.
Just yell
, he thought.
What’s the worst that could happen?
He knew the answer. But it was tempting, looking at the hot dogs.

“Go on,” Tom said. “Get whatever you want.” He gestured at the confectionery aisle. Wil walked toward a great pyramid of Hot & Spicy Pringles. When he glanced back, Tom had wandered over to the magazine rack, where a man in a red-checked snow hat was staring suspiciously at shrink-wrapped women. “Hi there,” said Tom. “That your truck?”

Wil looked back at the Pringles. He closed a hand around one. It was firm and familiar and did not do anything unexpected, for which he felt grateful. He looked back at Tom. Tom seemed to be paying him no attention. So he kept going, and then there was a shelf between them and he was out of sight. He felt overwhelmed by the desire to sit down. Cover himself with snacks, maybe. Make a little fort. He kept walking. He took a bag of chocolate eggs. Then a woman’s functional ponytail bobbed along in front of him, above the green and red foil snack bags.

He closed his eyes. Tom was going to take him to a lonely farmhouse and kill him. It was obvious. They would find him eight years later, buried beneath the roses, one skeleton among many in
WASHINGTON’S HOUSE OF NIGHTMARES
. Because Tom was a psychopath. Or possibly not: Possibly Tom was part of some kind of politically motivated group, something a little more professional and terroristic, but the point was Tom killed people. Tom had shot a girl in a blue cotton dress, and reloaded and shot her again, and Cecilia had died, and although that possibly wasn’t Tom’s fault, not directly, the takeaway message here was that around Tom people died. Wil would either get away or he would die, too. He felt calm. It was good to establish facts. It permitted the making of decisions. He was going to talk to this woman. He was sorry, but he was going to bring her into this. He would whisper a message and if things went bad, he would defend her. That was the best he could offer.

He opened his eyes. He felt sure Tom was watching him somehow, and sure enough, when he looked around there was a corner ceiling mirror and Tom was in it. Tom was nodding at the man in the snow hat, who was showing him a cell phone, for some reason. Wil pretended to inspect potato chips.

The woman’s ponytail bobbed toward the end of the aisle, where a cardboard cutout lion offered free Cokes with every purchase over four dollars. This lion could screen him, if he timed it right. He could pass the woman at this spot and for one perfect second speak to her unseen. He began to move. Halfway there, the woman’s ponytail stopped, and Wil had to stop and eye batteries to kill time. He glanced at the mirror. Tom was still chatting to the man. Why Tom had so much to say to this guy, Wil had no idea. The ponytail moved. Wil moved. He spotted a second security mirror and maybe this lion wasn’t going to screen him as completely as he’d thought, but it would only take a second to mutter,
I’m kidnapped help gun call 911
, and he was committed now
.
He had made a decision not to end up beneath roses. He rounded the corner.

A girl stood there, five or six years old. She was looking at the cardboard lion. Wil stopped. The woman came around the corner. “Caitlin. Come here.” The girl ran to her mother. Wil did not move. They passed him and headed up the next aisle.

The girl said, “Mommy, why was that man sad?”

“Shh,” said the woman.

•   •   •

He walked to the van. He was going to let this motherfucker take him somewhere and kill him, apparently. That was where he was at. He felt furious, at something.

“Not the van,” said Tom. “We’re changing cars.” He nodded at the pickup.

“Oh,” Wil said.

Tom jangled keys. “You saved their lives.” He unlocked the pickup and pulled open the door. “You made the right decision.”

The truck’s interior smelled of cigarettes. The dash had a bobblehead doll of someone Wil didn’t recognize. Some politician. Tom pulled at the door and the thump of its closure was like the sealing of a tomb.

The engine turned. Air blew from vents. “Ah!” Tom said. “We have heat.”

“You bought that guy’s truck,” Wil said.

“We swapped.” Tom revved tentatively. He seemed to approve of the sound and they began to roll past pumps, leaving behind the airport maintenance van.

“Swapped,” Wil said. “He just agreed to trade vehicles.”

“Yeah.” Tom took a moment to check traffic, and then accelerated onto the slip road. He dug in his coat pocket with one hand. “He also threw in this cell phone.”

Wil looked at it. “Did he.”

“Yeah,” said Tom. “To sweeten the deal.”

•   •   •

They reentered the freeway. It was Cecilia’s birthday next week. Wil had been putting off going shopping. “Just give me money,” she’d said, and he’d been thinking maybe he would, because she was so hard to buy for. But he might have thought of something. He still had a week. He might have found exactly what she wanted.

He remembered Rain standing in the middle of the road. The strange words she had spat through bloodstained teeth. The short man putting the gun to his own chin. He didn’t understand any of that. Maybe Tom was a serial killer, or a terrorist, or a covert government agent, or something else, but whatever he was, he must want something. Wil had to go shopping.

“Where are we going?”

Tom didn’t answer.

“Who was that girl?”

The truck hummed. The tires sluiced through wet road.

“Why did your friend shoot himself?”

“Shut up,” said Tom. “I’m not talking to you.”

“You came and got me. You must want me for something.”

“It’s not conversation.”

“Then what?”

Tom was silent.

“Why did he call her a poet? Your friend said, ‘I nailed a poet.’”